Sins of the Soul

The place smelled like old beer and older sweat. Other than the stage lights, the lounge was dim. The outlines of tables and chairs blended with the shadows. There were few patrons: the group by the stage. Two teenagers at a round table, clearly underage and clearly trying not to draw attention as they looked around, wide-eyed. An old guy slouched in a booth in the shadows, three empty glasses in front of him, and a fourth well on its way. No sign of a barmaid. The barman was slumped on a stool, his face obscured as he flipped through a tattered motorcycle magazine. They were all mortal. But the supernatural vibe persisted.


His gaze shot to the far wall where two shallow hallways notched from the main room. One had a sign above it that read Restrooms, the other Staff Only.

“Are we here for a specific reason?” Alastor asked. Not sixty seconds in, and he was ready to leave. Already he suspected Mal might have fared better on his own. A distorted version of his own reflection stared back at him from the mirrored wall behind the bar. Alastor stood out here like a blue button on a white shirt. Which made him a poor candidate if Mal’s intent was to blend in.

“Yeah, we’re here for a reason.”

“Tell me she—” Alastor jerked his head toward the stage “—is not it.”

“She’s not it.”

The stripper was beautiful. Far more beautiful than such surroundings warranted. That fact alone cranked Alastor’s suspicion from simmer to boil. Apart from a fine ass—which he couldn’t help but notice—she had other assets, hidden ones.

With a sultry smile, she tossed her long, blond hair, and shimmied down, knees spread. The mortal male leaned even further onto the stage and waved a bill. His companions hooted encouragement, and one of them pulled out a bill of his own, clamped it between his teeth and shook his head like a dog.

Reaching into his pocket, Alastor withdrew an English toffee caramel, unwrapped it, and popped the candy in his mouth as he watched the stripper get up on all fours and crawl close enough to draw the bill from the man’s meaty fingers. Close enough to let her hand linger on his, to lean in and let him stroke her hair. The average observer might see an unattractive man paying for the privilege of petting an unusually attractive woman.

Alastor saw something else entirely. “Looks like the Playhouse Lounge deals in something other than lap dances.”

“It does,” Mal agreed. “You got candy? I’m all out.”

Alastor fished another from his pocket and offered it to his brother. Their half human, half god metabolism meant that their cells and tissues demanded massive amounts of glucose to convert to ready energy. Candy was a quick hit, but they’d been known to drink honey or eat refined sugar in a pinch. Not pleasant, but necessary.

“Succubus?” He glanced at the stage.

“You nailed it.”

“No. Nor do I wish to.” The thought of feeding a succubus was less than enticing.

Mal grinned, white teeth bright against day-old stubble. “Don’t knock it till you try it, bro.”

Bro. That word summed up a world of difference between them. Mal was a chameleon. As the centuries passed, he took on the trappings of the current world with ease: technology, fashion, music, slang.

And while Alastor adopted some—particularly technology—he chose not to adopt all. He was a product of his upbringing, appreciating the opera and fine tea, the art of conversation, a well-tailored suit, and a part of him had no wish to give that up. At some cellular level, he was still, and always would be, the titled gentleman.

Some three hundred years past, Sutekh had sired four sons by three different human women in an effort to further his power and extend it more fully to the human realm. Alastor and Dagan were born of the same woman, while Mal and Lokan both had different mothers. Sutekh had raised those sons in different worlds, keeping the eldest, Dagan, in the Underworld and fostering the others out in an experiment to see which would emerge the strongest.

Without question, Dad was one cold bastard, brutal in the manner of a scalpel rather than a club. And smart. Why choose one path to his desired outcome, and possibly err, when he could try four different approaches and quadruple his chances of success?

He’d sent Alastor to England to be raised as the heir to a title. The people he believed to be his parents were old enough to be his grandparents, the women he believed to be his older sisters already in their late teens when he was just a tot. He had been loved and pampered and happy, the sole male progeny in a sea of fussing females.

Then one day, Sutekh had blown in like a storm and ripped Alastor’s sheltered, privileged world to shit. Alastor had gone from a gilded cage to the gutter. Then he’d gone to hell. And to his shock, he’d had company for the trip: his brothers, Dagan, Mal and Lokan.

They were the reasons he’d survived, the reasons he hadn’t lost his mind to the bitterness and despair that had nearly swallowed him whole.

The succubus recaptured Alastor’s attention as she shimmied and dipped. With a broad leer, the human by the stage straightened and looked around at his friends. For a second, Alastor had a clear view of his face. Their gazes met and he looked beyond lank hair and heavy brows, beyond the man’s eyes to his soul.

And the darkness he saw made his lips curve in a faint smile.

“I take it he’s her dinner?”